By Anthony O. Goriainoff


Norwegian Air Shuttle warned that capacity growth next year will be hurt by Boeing delivery delays, and reported a fall in second-quarter net profit after a lull in demand hit ticket prices.

The budget airline said Friday that it expects available seat kilometers, measure of an airline's carrying capacity, to rise 12% this year. However, this growth will slow in 2025 due to the delivery delays, it said. It expects the number of aircraft in its fleet to increase to 90 by the summer of 2025 from the current 86 planes.

However, the airline said current booking trends still remain robust for the months ahead, and that it is attracting an increasing number of business-travel customers.

Norwegian said net profit in the second quarter fell to 477.1 million Norwegian kroner ($44.5 million) from NOK537.9 million the year before.

Operating profit, the company's preferred metric, slipped to NOK593.2 million from NOK650.5 million. Total operating revenue rose 36% to NOK9.35 billion, while passenger numbers increased to 7.3 million from 5.6 million.

Passenger demand rose significantly on year as it ramped up capacity into the summer season, Norwegian said. Its load factor--a measure of how full a plane is--was 82.4%, down 2 percentage points from the same time last year.

The company said it expects operating profit for 2024 to be in the range of NOK2.1 billion to NOK2.6 billion.


Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at anthony.orunagoriainoff@dowjones.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

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